Orphan dramas and lost monologues: Head of Programmes review

By Anti Pie Consortium, on Sunday, February 28, 2010

New PRSD reviewer, Anti Pie Consortium, popped along to the Head of Programmes gig at the Junction, Plymouth, to find orphan dramas, lost monologues and a spectrum of emotion, but no shenanigans. Take it away, Anti Pie…

Head of Programmes opened a free music bill at the Junction, Plymouth, on Wednesday, February 24. They are a line up consisting of James MacGregor on vocals and lead guitar and Scott Brown on bass guitar as a stable core, other instruments are played by various musicians as required.

A set with Head of Programmes isn’t smiles and dancing. It’s not sunshine and shenanigans, and nobody holds your hand while ghosts circle your head. This is serious music made in a dignified and professional manner. On the night the communication was clear, language concise and direct, and delivered with a falling tear which so nearly appeared throughout this emotional performance.

James played a rare solo set, which gave the performance a solemn and lonely quality, something that would be detrimental to the majority of live acts, however it worked in James’s favour given that solemnity and loneliness are reoccurring themes in his work. He recites his language vividly and with poetic structure to describe memorable feelings and the places in which they first haunted him, both beautiful and sombre.

Head of Programmes wasn’t playing to impress with gimmicks or catchy hooks, although he occasionally displayed a weakness to the latter. He wasn’t wondering what you want to hear when composing these songs, these orphan dramas and lost monologues have little spare room in which to accommodate such frivolities – the emptiness also had a role to play. And the playing style is kept minimal and bare to allow maximum space for James’s natural, understated vocals.

From listening to the album The Magnetic South, released in 2008 on Found Objective, it is clear that this rabble can certainly rock if they need to, and excel at it. They have good ideas on how to convincingly balance energetic, loud music with gentle, timid sounds, and followed these ideas up with a set mixed with tunes from this record along with new songs, such as Glowing Moon, which displayed a bold move toward very slow, very sad music.

These are important and honest songs with a rich vein of humanity borne through an appreciation for lo-fi Americana, folk and rock music. Head of Programmes is a rarity, a bold and stubborn artist who refuses to compromise in his artistic vision even if that vision forces the band to travel the long way around.

James composes a ‘mellowdramatic’ network of reflections, fears, hopes and old-time high spirits articulated dynamically and with conviction. The crowd inevitably contained a good number of people who had already planned to have a boogie, but the set – when fully taken in – made a statement about the dignity in live music and the emotional connection it can forge with an audience.